We're running out of fish and we're fast running out of new places to find fish. A joint Canada/U.S./Australia study released by the peer-reviewed science information site, PloS, concludes that global fishing has burgeoned so rapidly over the past half century that the world fleets are running out of places to fish, places that is where the historic fisheries have not already been collapsed.
Once again, man has bested nature, taking more than the earth can supply. In 1950 the global catch was 19-million tonnes. It peaked in 1980 at 90-million tonnes. Despite new technologies the global catch dropped to 87-million tonnes by 2005 and fell below 80-million tonnes in 2008. It seems we reached Peak Fish three decades ago and have been relentlessly decimating the stocks ever since.
We got away with this three ways. One was "fishing down the food chain." As one desirable species was fished to collapse, we switched to what had been a less desirable species. Another was simply deploying better technology - a more efficient fishing fleet. The third was nomadic fishing - moving from one decimated area to a fresh fishing zone. Anyway you cut it, that has to end badly.
Daniel Pauly, a co-author who serves as principal investigator of the Sea Around Us Project at the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre, said the global seafood catch is dropping ''because there's essentially nowhere to go''. The fact that fish catches rose for so many decades ''looks like sustainability but it is actually expansion-driven. That is frightening, because the accounting is coming now.''
The authors - including lead author and UBC doctoral student Wilf Swartz and National Geographic Society ocean fellow Enric Sala - write that this relentless pursuit for seafood has left ''only unproductive waters of high seas and relatively inaccessible waters in the Arctic and Antarctic as the last remaining 'frontiers'.''
Showing posts with label fisheries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fisheries. Show all posts
Friday, December 03, 2010
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Plenty of Species But Dwindling Numbers
Scientists calculate our planet supports 230,000 marine species. That's a lot. That's the good news. The bad news is that the scientists who logged all these species found, in the course of their research, that many fish populations have plummeted by 90-95% of their normal numbers. From The Guardian:
"Published today, a 10-year study of the diversity, distribution and abundance of life in the world's oceans attempts just that. The Census of Marine Life, which hopes to paint a baseline of marine life, estimates there are more than 230,000 species in our oceans.
The surveys have also highlighted major areas of concern for conservationists. "In every region, they've got the same story of a major collapse of what were usually very abundant fish stocks or crabs or crustaceans that are now only 5-10% of what they used to be," said Mark Costello of the Leigh Marine Laboratory, University of Auckland in New Zealand. "These are largely due to over-harvesting and poor management of those fisheries. That's probably the biggest and most consistent threat to marine biodiversity around the world."
The main threats to date include overfishing, degraded habitats, pollution and the arrival of invasive species. But more problems are around the corner: rising water temperatures and acidification thanks to climate change and the growth in areas of the ocean that are low in oxygen and, therefore, unable to support life."
When it comes to mankind, once again it's the poorest and most vulnerable who take it in the neck from collapsing fish stocks. The world's poor tend to rely on fish as their main, often only source of animal protein. But poor people can't afford the expensive technology the rich people have for intensively harvesting declining fish stocks. And once those fish are gone, well.... we move on to keep fishing down the food chain while the poor people get to enjoy their empty waters. Neat, eh?
"Published today, a 10-year study of the diversity, distribution and abundance of life in the world's oceans attempts just that. The Census of Marine Life, which hopes to paint a baseline of marine life, estimates there are more than 230,000 species in our oceans.
The surveys have also highlighted major areas of concern for conservationists. "In every region, they've got the same story of a major collapse of what were usually very abundant fish stocks or crabs or crustaceans that are now only 5-10% of what they used to be," said Mark Costello of the Leigh Marine Laboratory, University of Auckland in New Zealand. "These are largely due to over-harvesting and poor management of those fisheries. That's probably the biggest and most consistent threat to marine biodiversity around the world."
The main threats to date include overfishing, degraded habitats, pollution and the arrival of invasive species. But more problems are around the corner: rising water temperatures and acidification thanks to climate change and the growth in areas of the ocean that are low in oxygen and, therefore, unable to support life."
When it comes to mankind, once again it's the poorest and most vulnerable who take it in the neck from collapsing fish stocks. The world's poor tend to rely on fish as their main, often only source of animal protein. But poor people can't afford the expensive technology the rich people have for intensively harvesting declining fish stocks. And once those fish are gone, well.... we move on to keep fishing down the food chain while the poor people get to enjoy their empty waters. Neat, eh?
Monday, May 17, 2010
UN Calls for End to Over-Fishing
A UN report warns that saving global fish stocks from total collapse means beaching 13-million fishing boats worldwide. From The Guardian:
The UN's environment branch, UNEP, gave a sneak preview of its green economy report that will be published in October. It said that if the world remained on its current path of over-fishing, by 2050 all fish stocks could have become uneconomic to exploit or actually extinct.
Pavan Sukhdev, who heads UNEP's green economy initiative, said: "That is not as absurd as it sounds, as already 30% of the ocean fisheries have collapsed and are producing less than 10% of their original ability."
At the heart of the UN's analysis is the $27bn of subsidies it estimates is being injected into fishing every year, mainly by developing countries. The UN says the subsidies are huge in terms of the scale of the industry – amounting to almost a third of the $85bn total value of fish caught.
Among those subsidies, the UN defines just $8bn-worth as "good" in the sense of encouraging sustainable fishing of healthy stocks. Most of the subsidies are "bad", meaning they lead to overcapacity and exploitation, and about $3bn of the subsidies are "ugly", actively leading to the depletion of fish populations.
Among the most egregious practices targeted by the report are inducements to increase the size of massive trawler fleets that are among the main culprits of overfishing, and fuel subsidies on fuel for fleets.
"We are paying ourselves to destroy the very resource on which the whole fishing industry is dependant. We are in the process of eroding the natural capital that underpins our economies," said Achim Steiner, UNEP's director.
The UN estimates 20-million jobs need to be cut from the global fishing industry.
The UN's environment branch, UNEP, gave a sneak preview of its green economy report that will be published in October. It said that if the world remained on its current path of over-fishing, by 2050 all fish stocks could have become uneconomic to exploit or actually extinct.
Pavan Sukhdev, who heads UNEP's green economy initiative, said: "That is not as absurd as it sounds, as already 30% of the ocean fisheries have collapsed and are producing less than 10% of their original ability."
At the heart of the UN's analysis is the $27bn of subsidies it estimates is being injected into fishing every year, mainly by developing countries. The UN says the subsidies are huge in terms of the scale of the industry – amounting to almost a third of the $85bn total value of fish caught.
Among those subsidies, the UN defines just $8bn-worth as "good" in the sense of encouraging sustainable fishing of healthy stocks. Most of the subsidies are "bad", meaning they lead to overcapacity and exploitation, and about $3bn of the subsidies are "ugly", actively leading to the depletion of fish populations.
Among the most egregious practices targeted by the report are inducements to increase the size of massive trawler fleets that are among the main culprits of overfishing, and fuel subsidies on fuel for fleets.
"We are paying ourselves to destroy the very resource on which the whole fishing industry is dependant. We are in the process of eroding the natural capital that underpins our economies," said Achim Steiner, UNEP's director.
The UN estimates 20-million jobs need to be cut from the global fishing industry.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Climate Change - American Fish Vote With Their Tails
Sarah Palin says she doesn't believe in man-made global warming. She also opposed placing the polar bear and beluga on America's endangered species list lest it trouble those oil companies she's always standing up to.
Now her state is facing another climate change victim - its main fish stock (no that's not king crab), the humble pollock, is taking off for Russia.
It's something we've seen plenty of out here on the coast. As the polar ice fields retreat, waters warm and species move north. There has been a steady northward retreat of the food chain. Grey whales which once used to gorge in the Bering now travel on into the Beaufort to find krill and, in the process, they're losing a lot of body mass.
But this is about Alaska and the pollock. You won't see pollock on the menus in fancy restaurants but it's a big seller packaged as fish sticks or fast food fish sandwiches or processed up as artificial crab. Alaskan fishermen have been harvesting about two billion pounds of pollock annually.
Fish stocks that were once abundant near the Aleutians are now reaching the Russian border, steadily moving the northwestern end of their range.
When migratory fish stocks dwindle on this coast, suspicion always turns to the neighbours. It's an historic squabble between BC and Washington salmon fishermen. Now it seems that same sort of dispute is inevitable between Alaskan and Russian authorities. When what's at stake is the largest human-food fishery in the world the rivalry could be intense.
Now her state is facing another climate change victim - its main fish stock (no that's not king crab), the humble pollock, is taking off for Russia.
It's something we've seen plenty of out here on the coast. As the polar ice fields retreat, waters warm and species move north. There has been a steady northward retreat of the food chain. Grey whales which once used to gorge in the Bering now travel on into the Beaufort to find krill and, in the process, they're losing a lot of body mass.
But this is about Alaska and the pollock. You won't see pollock on the menus in fancy restaurants but it's a big seller packaged as fish sticks or fast food fish sandwiches or processed up as artificial crab. Alaskan fishermen have been harvesting about two billion pounds of pollock annually.
Fish stocks that were once abundant near the Aleutians are now reaching the Russian border, steadily moving the northwestern end of their range.
When migratory fish stocks dwindle on this coast, suspicion always turns to the neighbours. It's an historic squabble between BC and Washington salmon fishermen. Now it seems that same sort of dispute is inevitable between Alaskan and Russian authorities. When what's at stake is the largest human-food fishery in the world the rivalry could be intense.
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